social mediahttp://member.iftf.org/taxonomy/term/168/all
enLanguage Mining is the New Health (and Marketing) Toolhttp://member.iftf.org/node/3982
http://member.iftf.org/node/3982#commentsdata miningpersuasionprivacysocial mediaThe Future NowHealth HorizonsI've been really enjoying James Pennebaker's new book <a href="http://secretlifeofpronouns.com/">The Secret Life of Pronouns</a>, which provides a great, readable overview of how subtle shifts in word choice--frequently, shifts in the use of pronouns from "we" to "I"--can reveal significant differences in emotional, and consequently, physical health. What's particularly intriguing about his book is that thanks to email and other text archives, businesses, doctors and researchers will have all sorts of capabilities to understand and reach people based on these once imperceptible language choices.
Speaking with <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-language-code&print=true">Scientific American</a>, Pennebaker describes some of the findings:
<blockquote>
In the 1980s, my students and I discovered that if people were asked to write about emotional upheavals, their physical health improved. Apparently, putting emotional experiences into language changed the ways people thought about their upheavals. In an attempt to better understand the power of writing, we developed a computerized text analysis program to determine how language use might predict later health improvements. In other words, I wanted to find if there was a healthy way to write.
Much to my surprise, I soon discovered that the ways people used pronouns in their essays predicted whose health would improve the most. Specifically, those people who benefited the most from writing changed in their pronoun use from one essay to another. Pronouns were reflecting people’s abilities to change perspective.
/<blockquote>
Perhaps most strikingly, these sorts of language shifts are intriguing because we don't notice them in daily interaction, but as tools to mine everything from speech to email to social media streams continue to emerge, we're on the verge of gaining an unprecedented ability to understand people's mental states through their unconscious language choices.
Pennebaker isn't the only researcher to begin to find health applications from language mining. Last year, a group of psychologists <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news196441969.html">announced</a> that they had developed an algorithm that could identify depressed bloggers by scanning archives of blog posts. The algorithm was in agreement with a panel of psychologists nearly 80 percent of the time. Similarly, a different study <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/15/study-unveils-word-patterns-of-psychopaths">found</a> strong correlations between language use and psychopathy.
The power of these sorts of tools to pull meaningful information from seeming noise points toward a need to <a href="http://www.iftf.org/node/3572">think far more broadly</a> about what we mean by health data and puts us in a world where e-mail and Facebook pages offer <a href="http://www.iftf.org/node/3804">legitimately valuable</a> health information.
Language, in other words, can be a tool for identifying who needs help. Beyond that, though, I think it offers a potential tool for understanding how to help--based on personality type.
Pennebaker, for example, <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20848-the-secret-life-of-pronouns.html?full=true">has found</a> a variety of clues to personality that we can deduce from text:
<blockquote>
One area this is useful is in personality research. As you might guess, different patterns of function words reveal important parts of people's personalities...
Formal writing often appears stiff, sometimes humourless, with a touch of arrogance... Formality is related to a number of important personality traits. Those who score highest in formal thinking tend to be more concerned with status and power and are less self-reflective. They drink and smoke less and are more mentally healthy, but also tend to be less honest. As people age, their writing styles tend to become more formal.
Analytical writing, meanwhile, is all about making distinctions. These people attain higher grades, tend to be more honest, and are more open to new experiences. They also read more and have more complex views of themselves.
Narrative writers are natural storytellers... People who score high for narrative writing tend to have better social skills, more friends and rate themselves as more outgoing.
By watching how people use function words, we gain insight into how they think, how they organise their worlds and how they relate to other people.
</blockquote>
Of course, at some level, this is pretty theoretical. Most of us would probably be reluctant to let our doctors and <a href="http://www.iftf.org/node/3716">health insurers search through our Facebook pages</a>, even as that same source of information gets re-purposed for marketing and other efforts.
Health isn't the only application of this research, of course--Pennebaker has used language mining to find relationships between pronoun use and age, social class, and social status, some of which have been long standing marketing tools, while others, like <a href="http://www.iftf.org/node/3677">social status</a> are just now emerging as powerful tools for targeting sales pitches.
This will put us in a somewhat disappointing place in the next decade: One where valuable information to improve our well-being is trapped, even as it gets used to sell us things we may or may not want.Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:04:12 +0000Bradley Kreit3982 at http://member.iftf.orgDo Androids Dream of Origami Unicorns?http://member.iftf.org/node/3971
http://member.iftf.org/node/3971#commentsartificial intelligencebotssocial mediaThe Future Nowunicorns<p>Swiss artist Matthieu Cherubini was kind enough to share some his thoughts and process behind the social bot&nbsp;<em>rep.licants</em>. &nbsp;</p><p><em><a href="http://awd.site.nfoservers.com/replicants/" target="_blank">rep.licants.org</a></em> is a service allowing users to install an artificial intelligence (<em>bot</em>) on their Facebook and/or Twitter account. From keywords, content analysis and activity analysis, the <em>bot</em> attempts to simulate the activity of the user, to improve it by feeding his account and to create new contacts with other users.</p><p>The experience of an enhanced virtual self as users are invited to install a bot on ther favorite social network account&nbsp;and become a replicant. &nbsp;Provided with "virtual prothesis for the social media introvert", people who use the service have started to uncover what it means to automate social interactions.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><blockquote><p class="p1">GH: You are an artist! Why did you start working on rep.licants?&nbsp;&nbsp;Is it similar to your other work?</p>
<p class="p1">MC: rep.licants is the work that I did for my master thesis. During my studies, I developed an interest about the way most of people are using social networks but also the differences in between someone real identity and his digital one. I do not have a big experience about creating personal projects, I began seriously to do it during the past 2 years, so previous to rep.licants I did two other "serious" personal projects and they were related to this thematic aswell. One <em>The Pursuit of Happiness</em>&nbsp;is about hacking into Facebook account of random users in order to steal their private messages for seeing what they were looking for on this social-network. The second one <em>Afghan War Diary</em>&nbsp;is about linking data coming from Counter Strikes servers and Wikileaks and displaying the result on Google Earth.</p>
<p class="p1">Back to rep.licants - when I began to think about a project for my master thesis, I really wanted to work on those two thematics (mix in between digital and real identity and a kind of study about how users are using social networks). With the aim to raise discussions about those two thematics.</p>
<p class="p1">&nbsp;</p><p class="p1">GH: What was the process like for you?&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">MC: At first I just had the idea about creating a webservice where people could subscribe on it and mix themselves with a robot. But I really didn't know where I was going exactly. So I began the project as an experiment.</p>
<p class="p1">The first step was to study what people could do on Facebook (I began with Facebook only) and how a bot could reproduce those same actions by linking himself to other services that its user is using or by getting new informations on other sources.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">After I programmed a version of the bot, according to this previous study, with few functions and I asked to some of my teachers, tutors and classmates if the[img_assist|nid=3969|title=|desc=This schema roughly demonstrates how the bot is working.|link=node|align=left|width=560|height=198]y wanted to be volunteers for this experiment...I had 3 volunteers who did the experiment for like 4 months. I was asking them weekly what the bot was doing, if they were feeling the bot was lacking of something important, ... &nbsp;During this 4 months I redesigned a bot for Facebook by taking into account the feedbacks of my three volunteers.</p>
<p class="p1">In same time I also decided to do a version of the bot on Twitter and the process was almost the same as Facebook.</p><p class="p1">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">GH: What have people's responses been?&nbsp;&nbsp;Have Facebook or Twitter responded at all?</p>
<p class="p1">MC: The responses has been very mixed some are over negatives and some are very positive ! I'm happy about that because it's very interesting: the negative responses are mainly from people who were thinking rep.licants is a real and serious webservice which is giving for free performant bots who are able to almost perfectly replicate the user. And if they are expecting that I understand their disappointment because my bot is far from being performant ! Some were negatives because people were thinking it is kind of scary asking a bot to manage your own digital identity so they rejected the idea.</p>
<p class="p1">For the positive responses it's mainly people who understood that rep.licants is not about giving performant bots but is more like an experiment (and also a kind of critics about how most of the users are using social networks) where users can mix themselves with a bot and see what is happening. Because even if my bots are crap they can be, sometimes, surprising.</p>
<p class="p1">But I was kind of surprised that so many people would really expect to have a real bot to manage their social networks account.</p>
<p class="p1">Twitter never responded and Facebook responded by banning, three times already, my Facebook applications which is managing and running all the Facebook's bots.</p>
<p class="p1">&nbsp;</p><p class="p1">GH: How do people use it?&nbsp;&nbsp;Have there been any interesting stories of how people have used rep.licants?&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">MC: For what I know and after some questions/feedbacks received by users, I would say that some people use the bot:</p>
<p class="p1">a. Just as an experiment, they want to see what the bot can do and if the bot can really improve their virtual social influences. Or users experimenting how long they could keep a bot on their account without their friends noticing it's runt by a bot.</p>
<p class="p1">b. I saw few time inside my database which stores informations about the users that some of them have a twitter name like "renthouseUSA", so I guess they are using rep.licants for getting a presence on social networks without managing anything and as a commercial goal.</p>
<p class="p1">c. This is a feedback that I had a lot of time and it is the reason why I am using rep.licants on my own twitter account: If you are precise with the keywords that you give to the bot, it will sometimes find very interesting content related to your interest. My bot made me discover a lot of interesting things, by posting them on Twitter, that I wouldn't never find without him. New informations are coming so fast and in so big quantities that it becomes really difficult to deal with that. For example just on Twitter I follow 80 persons (which is not a lot) all of those persons that I follow is because I know that they might tweet interesting stuffs related to my interests. But I have maybe 10 of those 80 followers who are tweeting quiet a lot (maybe 1-2 tweet per hour) and as I check my twitter feed only one time per day I sometimes loose more than one hour to find interesting tweets in the amount of tweets that my 80 persons posted. And this is only for Twitter !&nbsp;I really think that we need more and more personal robots for filtering information for us. And this is a very positive point I found about having a bot that I could never imagine when I was beginning my project.</p><p class="p1">&nbsp;</p>
<span style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">[img_assist|nid=3970|title=|desc=|link=url|url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/rep_licants_org|align=right|width=300|height=461]</span><p class="p1">GH: Have there been any interesting disasters or failures in the interactions as a result?&nbsp;&nbsp;Or any surprising bugs?</p>
<p class="p1">MC: One surprising bugs was when the Twitter's bots began to speak to themselves. It's maybe boring for some users to see their own account speak to itself one time per day but when I discovered the bug I found it very funny. So I decided to keep that bug !</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 11px;"><br /></span>I do not know if it is a disaster or failures but sometimes I really felt bad for some people who were having nonsense discussion with a bot without knowing it is one. There is <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rep_licants_org" target="_blank">a collection about this kind of discussions on the Bot's Diary</a>.</p><p class="p1">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">GH: My own experience with rep.licants revealed to me an <em>aesthetic of antagonism</em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;What does an aesthetics of antagonism mean to you?</p>
<p class="p1">MC: I'm not sure but maybe something which is hostile in my project ? Or maybe the way the bots are running ? As they are very buggy, they do a lot of things which could be opposite. One time they could find a content which is absolutely match to the user but the next one is absolutely opposite of what the user is or like.</p></blockquote><p>&nbsp;</p><p>One of the things I've discovered during my own use of a rep.licants Twitter bot is that it likes to retweet messages I've exchanged with an acquaintance – sometimes even the same mmessage more than once. &nbsp;This has a somewhat awkward effect of bringing attention to that interaction when it wasn't really warranted.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Around the same time Matthieu and I conducted the interview, this video of a chatbot having a conversation with itself went viral – perhaps in part because the conversation immediately turned towards&nbsp;<a href="http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/08/theological_cha.php" target="_blank">more existentialist questions and responses</a>. &nbsp;The conversation was recorded at the&nbsp;<a href="http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/">Cornell Creative Machines Lab</a>, where the faculty are researching how to make helper bots.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><object width="560" height="345" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/WnzlbyTZsQY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="data" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WnzlbyTZsQY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WnzlbyTZsQY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /></object></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The best part of the video happens when one chatbot implores that he is not a robot – but rather a unicorn. How the bot determined that is not widely known, but it does invoke an important visual element and narrative theme from Ridley Scott's <em>Blade Runner – </em>where&nbsp;the main character&nbsp;Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) has dreams of unicorns. The character of Gaff (played by Edward james Olmos) is also seen making origami unicorns – an apparent reference to his knowledge that Deckard is replicant.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><object width="560" height="345" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/_7o0rvVxU0w?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_7o0rvVxU0w?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /></object></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The questions that rep.licants poses are deep human and social ones – laced with uncertainties about the kinds of interactions we count as normal and the responsibilities we owe to ourselves and each other. &nbsp;Seeing these bots carry out conversations with themselves and with human counterparts (much less other nn-human counterparts) allows us to take tradition social and technological research into a different territory – asking not only what it means to be human – but also what it means to be non-human.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:55:32 +0000Gabriel Harp3971 at http://member.iftf.orgWhat Your Facebook Profile Can Tell Fraud Investigatorshttp://member.iftf.org/node/3716
http://member.iftf.org/node/3716#commentsparticipatory panopticonprivacysocial mediaThe Future NowHealth HorizonsAn <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-evidence-20110125,0,4304729.story#">interesting story</a> in the Los Angeles Times highlights the different ways that insurance companies have begun to monitor social networking cites in an effort to root out fraud. For example, a fraud investigator who sees a disability patient post photos of a recent distance run, might use the photo as evidence for further investigation--or to stop paying a disability claim entirely.
This sort of practice, according to the Times, is pretty common:
<blockquote>
Social-networking sites have become such "standard tools" that Peter Foley, vice president of claims administration at American Insurance Assn., said that investigators could be considered negligent if they didn't conduct at least "a quick scan of social media to check for contradictions."
But the evidence gathered on these sites, Foley and other insurance experts caution, should be used only as a launch pad for further investigations and never as final proof of fraud.....
Mike Fitzgerald, a Celent senior analyst, said life insurance companies could find social media especially valuable for comparing what people will admit about lifestyle choices and medical histories in applications, and what they reveal online.
That could range from "liking" a cancer support group online to signs of high-risk behavior. "If someone claims they don't go sky diving often, but it clearly indicates on their online profile that they do it every weekend they can get away," Fitzgerald said, "that would raise a red flag for insurers."
</blockquote>
I'm not sure I understand how liking a cancer support group is a sign of "high-risk behavior," but, as best I can tell, these sorts of searches have clearly become "standard tools." In just the past couple of months, for example, <a href="http://www.technewsdaily.com/feds-use-facebook-narcissism-to-reveal-marriage-fraud-1444/">a separate investigation</a> found that the Department of Homeland Security has begun using photos posted on Facebook to assess whether or not marriages have been faked for immigration purposes.
If this sounds familiar, it's the premise of <a href="http://www.iftf.org/node/2813">an excellent, if disturbing forecast</a> my colleagues in the Ten Year Forecast put together a couple years ago about how all of our social media will lead to a "participatory panopticon." In effect, our desire to share details of our lives becomes its own form of surveillance.
One striking thing, at least in the context of health, however, is that most of us probably won't share the worst details of our health states with everyone we've ever met (in other words, our Facebook networks.) Or, as one expert quoted by the Times puts it, "No one puts pictures of themselves crying in a dark room, even if that's what they're doing 18 hours a day." But at least at the moment, investigators assume that a couple active photos or status updates imply that nothing is wrong.
Which makes me think that a person could apparently pull off insurance fraud by filing a claim, photoshopping some depressing photos, and posting them to Facebook. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it strikes me that most of these investigations rely on a similarly shaky assumption: That our identities online are accurate and complete reflections of how we navigate the physical world.Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:09:03 +0000Bradley Kreit3716 at http://member.iftf.orgYour Friends as Salespeoplehttp://member.iftf.org/node/3451
http://member.iftf.org/node/3451#commentsmarketingpersuasionsocial mediaThe Future NowFood Futures LabVia <a href="http://springwise.com/weekly/2010-04-07.htm#oosocial">Springwise</a> comes word of an interesting marketing ploy from Domino's Pizza: They've developed a widget that you can place on your social networking profile, blog or other online presence, which your friends can then click on in order to order a pizza. For every order, you get 0.5 percent of the sale. Think of it as affiliate marketing meets social networking.
The logic behind the widget, as Springwise puts it, is fairly straightforward:
<blockquote>
All the marketing experts in the world can't hold a candle to the persuasive power socially connected consumers have over each other; the key is harnessing that power and putting it to work for your brand—with rewards, of course, for the consumers in question. Who will be the first brand in *your* industry to leverage the virtually limitless marketing muscle of sellsumers?
</blockquote>
Count me as intrigued, but skeptical. For one thing, the incentives--0.5 percent of every sale--work out to a tiny amount of money. Even a pizza order for a fairly sizable group--say, a $100 purchase--only earns the end user 50 cents. I'd be astonished if anyone could earn more than a couple dollars per year through their Domino's widget, yet, in exchange, they'd have to plaster their Facebook page and other forms of online identity with a Domino's ad all the time. Would you want your friends and family to think of you as a pizza shill for the chance to earn, literally, a couple bucks?
Probably not.
The bigger problem, however, is that nobody needs the help of their social network to think to order Domino's Pizza. This isn't the sort of local place you might stumble upon after a couple years living somewhere and then tell all your friends about. This is a decades old, widely-known chain. Nor is Facebook the place to go to order a pizza--the context, in other words, doesn't make much sense.
But these latter issue points, I think, to a different potential in social affiliate marketing in food as well as other industries. There might be some potential to use affiliate marketing programs in the context of expert, local recommendations--say, a widely known San Francisco food blogger pointing her readers to her restaurant picks--though even then, some pretty significant hurdles remain. I trust my friends, or bloggers I respect, in part because I believe that they will give me their honest opinion. I think my friends will recommend their favorite pizza, for example, not the pizza that nets them a nickel, whether or not they really like it. And, in fact, <a href="http://www.iftf.org/index.php?q=node/2572">Yelp has run into some trouble</a> for giving the illusion of honest recommendations that turn out to stem from crude advertising.
Would it be possible to resolve that trust issue on an individual's social networking page? I think it might be in more local contexts, where one's reputation and expertise is already connected to a product, and where endorsing something bad would have a major social cost. But in the meantime, I do expect we'll see a lot of big brands following Domino's lead in trying to figure out how to turn our friends into salespeople.Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:00:12 +0000Bradley Kreit3451 at http://member.iftf.org23AndMe's "Research Revolution"http://member.iftf.org/node/3018
http://member.iftf.org/node/3018#commentsgeneticsHC2020-Disciplinepersonalized medicinesocial mediaHealth HorizonsA couple months ago, I <a href="/node/2722">noted</a> that 23andMe initiated its first self-organized trial for Parkinson's Disease where the patients themselves have paid much of the cost of enrolling in trials and have invested time into filling out questionnaires and tracking symptoms. Last week, the company <a href="http://spittoon.23andme.com/2009/07/07/introducing-a-do-it-yourself-revolution-in-disease-research/">announced</a> plans to expand those efforts to 10 additional conditions by offering a $99 DNA test kit to individuals who will participate in the company's research. As part of this process, they've launched <a href="https://www.23andme.com/researchrevolution/">the &quot;research revolution&quot; area of their site</a> where individuals can pledge to participate in the research and vote on which diseases 23andMe's researchers should study first.In describing the effort, 23andMe's founder Linda Avey <a href="http://spittoon.23andme.com/2009/07/07/introducing-a-do-it-yourself-revolution-in-disease-research/">writes</a>:
<blockquote>
But not everyone can garner the resources to create their own company or foundation; it’s hard to know where to turn in trying to make a difference. This summer, 23andMe is launching the Research Revolution to empower more people to jumpstart genetic research into the diseases that affect them and the people they love. This new research model makes it possible for large groups of people to assemble themselves into large-scale genetic studies without having to raise millions of dollars in funding, and then wait years for things to get rolling.
</blockquote>
It's an intriguing model, and one that I think will gain acceptance over time as genetic testing continues to become cheaper. But, as Daniel MacArthur <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2009/07/23andme_launches_new_effort_to.php">notes</a>, the big short-term challenge will be to recruit enough patients to actually derive statistically useful information--and at the present targets of 1,000 enrolled participants, there probably won't be enough participants and data to reach statistical significance.That said, their long-range model, as MacArthur suggests, is potentially far more disruptive. As he puts it, 23andMe:
<blockquote>
[A]im to build stable, self-sustaining communities of potential research participants, that add new members over time and are available to add further trait data (for instance, to answer more detailed questions about disease progression) and also to engage in more sophisticated genetic tests (up to and including whole-genome sequencing, eventually).
</blockquote>
If, as he suggests, 23andMe can effectively build stable communities that track data over time, they'll have an incredibly unique, and powerful tool to advance medical research.
Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:34:27 +0000Bradley Kreit3018 at http://member.iftf.orgFitness product does social media marketing righthttp://member.iftf.org/node/2852
http://member.iftf.org/node/2852#commentsfitnessHC2020-Growthmarketingsocial mediaHealth Horizons<p>
I'm at the <a href="http://www.gamesforhealth.org/" target="_blank">Games for Health Conference</a>, which is sponsored by the <a href="http://www.rwjf.org/pioneer/" target="_blank">Robert Wood Johnson Pioneer program</a>. A product manager from <a href="http://www.ea.com" target="_blank">Electronic Arts (EA)</a> gave the morning keynote about the success of their product launch for Sports Active, which is a fitness program that uses the Wii platform. EA is well-known for its line of sports games, as well as other genres generally targeted at a male, video-game playing audience.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-active" target="_blank">Sports Active</a> is a new product that is aimed primarily at a female audience, specifically busy moms.
</p>
<img src="/files/images/ea_sports_active_wii.jpg" class="image image-_original" height="320" width="320" />
<!--break--><br />
<p>
One of the things I found most interesting about the presentation was EA's early marketing efforts. It recognized that it needed to engage with this population where they spent time online, so it reached out to the communities of moms on BlogHer, Hi-Yech Mommy, Cafe Mom, Mother Click, and iVillage. Ultimately, it targeted 1000
influential mommy bloggers.
</p>
<p>
The product seems to deliver what these women wanted in a video game based workout: Sports Active provides a guided, personalized experience that really makes you sweat in the convenience on your own home.
</p>
Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:43:53 +0000Vivian Distler2852 at http://member.iftf.orgBetter eat your Wheaties . . . and tell the world about ithttp://member.iftf.org/node/2697
http://member.iftf.org/node/2697#commentsfoodHC2020-Transformationsocial mediaHealth Horizons<p>
Okay, I confess, this post is really about Kashi Cereal, not Wheaties. More importantly, it is about how this healthy food brand is using social media to build community around living well. The <a href="http://www.kashi.com/meet_us/mission" target="_blank">company believes</a> that &quot;[w]ellness isn’t a race—it’s a journey. And every day is an opportunity to live life a little healthier than the day before. We truly believe when we eat well, we feel well.&quot;
</p>
<p>
The company must also believe in the power of social networks, because it has created one on its website.
</p>
<p>
<span class="inline inline-center"><img src="/files/images/Picture%2051.preview.png" class="image image-preview" height="154" width="425" /></span>
</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
I checked out the list of recently posted accomplishments, and they included entries like: &quot;Ate an apple instead of a hand full of jelly beans&quot; and &quot;i worked out 30 mins last night then i walked 3 miles with my dogs.&quot; A &quot;Community Round Up&quot; feature polls members about specific ways they are working toward positive change. So far this month, 920 people have indicated that they are buying locally-grown foods.
</p>
<p>
I found the &quot;Challenge Yourself&quot; section particularly interesting, because lately I've been looking at how elements of gaming—including the use of challenges to engage participants—can play a role in encouraging physical activity. Kashi, in describing how its &quot;community is built,&quot; observes that &quot;[m]aking a positive change is easier if you have someone to share it with.&quot;
</p>
<p>
<span class="inline inline-center"><img src="/files/images/Picture%2052.preview.png" class="image image-preview" height="94" width="425" /></span>
</p>
<p>
Some of my colleagues in the Health Horizons Program have worked with Kashi folks in the past, but that has not at all influenced my decision to write this post. Instead, I credit the <a href="http://trajectory4brands.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/social-brands-that-support-a-healthy-lifestyle/" target="_blank">Healthy Conversations blog</a> for pointing me to the story.
</p>
Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:58:25 +0000Vivian Distler2697 at http://member.iftf.org"Waterfront: The Conde Nast of Web Health"http://member.iftf.org/node/2669
http://member.iftf.org/node/2669#commentshealth informationnew business modelssocial mediaTen-Year ForecastHealth Horizons<p>
I have to confess--that is not my headline; it is <i>Business Week</i>'s. But it is just so perfect that I couldn't resist using it. A major source of health information online, founded in 2002, being compared to a worldwide magazine publishing powerhouse that has been around for 100 years? New media, meet old media!
</p>
<p>
The <i>Business Week</i> <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_12/b4124073354999.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories" target="_blank">article</a> summarizes Waterfront Media's collection of health websites and looks at the evolution of the company since its <a href="/node/2335" target="_blank">acquisition of Revolution Health</a>. The Internet is the primary source of health information for 70% of U.S. adults, and as of July 2008, WebMD had dominated this space, with 17.3 million visitors that month. At the time, Waterfront's Everyday Health was the second-most popular health-related website (with 14.7 million unique visitors), and Revolution Health was third (11.3 million visitors). Everyday Health now boasts it has 24.7 million unique visitors a month (with WebMD now at 21.2 visitors).
</p>
<p>
With Revolution Health in its fold, <a href="http://www.waterfrontmedia.com" target="_blank">Waterfront Media</a> could be called a powerhouse in the online health world. But why the comparison to Conde Nast (which really should be credited to Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, founder of health-care consultant Think-Health and former IFTF affiliate, who is quoted in the <i>Biz Week</i> article)? The company's business model is built on the idea of being the aggregator of a network of small, popular health-related websites. These include well-known brands, such as South Beach Diet, alternative medicine guru Dr. Andrew Weil, and What to Expect — based on the pregnancy book read by 93% of first-time mothers in the U.S.; a complete list can be found <a href="http://www.waterfrontmedia.com/meet-our-partners.aspx" target="_blank">here</a>.
</p>
<p>
&nbsp;
</p>
Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:39:06 +0000Vivian Distler2669 at http://member.iftf.orgSocial Geneticshttp://member.iftf.org/node/2631
http://member.iftf.org/node/2631#commentsgeneticssocial mediaHealth HorizonsVia <a href="http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2009/03/09/genetree-announces-web-site-out-of-beta/">Blaine Bettinger</a> comes word of the official launch of a website that combines genetics and social networking: <a href="http://www.genetree.com/">GeneTree.</a> The company, which describes itself as a "family networking site," is part Facebook, part 23andMe. Users can create their own profiles, naturally as well as wiki-type profiles of relatives and ancestors. Users can connect to each other and build out extended family trees through their ancestors.
What makes GeneTree unusual is its integration of these social tools with DNA testing. Members can pay for DNA tests of mitochondiral DNA and y chromosomes--genetic elements used to determine maternal and paternal ancestry, respectively--to branch out, find other, more distant relatives from wherever they may be scattered.
In theory, the service aims to let users develop bigger, deeper, more engaging pictures of their family history--both in creating interesting, nuanced stories of relatives as well as the literal sense of knowing one's family genetics. Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:07:46 +0000Bradley Kreit2631 at http://member.iftf.orgShould the doctor be ordering MedPedia yet?http://member.iftf.org/node/2557
http://member.iftf.org/node/2557#commentshealth 2.0informationsocial mediaHealth Horizons<a href="http://www.medpedia.com" target="_blank">MedPedia</a>, which <a href="/node/2183">I wrote about</a> last fall, has gone public. Part Wikipedia for health information, part LinkedIn for health professionals, it remains the Health 2.0 darling of <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/about-techcrunch/" target="_blank">TechCrunch</a> (TC). In a recent post, <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/medpedias-health-platform-could-be-just-what-the-doctor-ordered/">Medpedia’s Health Platform Could Be Just What The Doctor Ordered</a>,&quot; TC writer Leena Rao lauded MedPedia as &quot;the trustworthy, fully transparent technology platform for the worldwide health community.&quot; She compared the entry on angioplasty to similar pages on WebMD and Wikipedia, and found,
<blockquote>
Medpedia’s post much easier to understand, both visually and content-wise. The pictures of the procedure and condition were detailed and the description offered two versions of the procedure, the clinical and “plain english” version, which can be helpful when doing extensive research on a condition.
</blockquote>
<p>
Unfortunately, I did not have the same experience when I tried to look at MedPedia's entry on breast cancer. Why? Because MedPedia doesn't have an article on breast cancer!
</p>
<p>
After several frustrating search attempts, I finally checked the index of all articles and realized that a breast cancer entry has yet to be created. I quickly skimmed the articles list and noticed that colon, hypopharyngeal, prostate, thyroid, and testicular cancers all have entries, but breast, lung, and pancreatic cancers do not. This distribution of articles surprised me, given the prevalence of breast cancer and lung cancer in the United States (most common cancer in women (25%), and second most common cancer among both men (15%) and women (14%), respectively, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_cancer" target="_blank">according to Wikipedia</a>). Wikipedia's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer" target="_blank">entry on breast cancer</a> is thorough, with links to more detailed articles on specific related topics, such as screening, staging, and treatment. The <a href="http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/default.htm" target="_blank">WebMD Breast Cancer Center</a> has an extensive collection of information (perhaps too much information?) and resources on all aspects of the disease.
</p>
<p>
MedPedia includes three taglines on its front page: Collaborative; Interdisciplinary; and Always evolving, never complete. While I agree that the nature of any wiki-type collection of information generally fits the third tag, I am concerned that MedPedia's excellence is being touted before the site has even compiled a representative (never mind thorough, and certainly never expect complete) collection of articles about major health concerns.
</p>
<p>
I think MedPedia holds tremendous potential to offer the best of both worlds--the easy-to-understand entries found on Wikipedia and the trustworthy information written by health professionals on WebMD--but it is not there yet, if for no other reason than lack of breadth. Perhaps I am less glowing about it than TC's Rao is because I am less enamored (though certainly impressed) with MedPedia's founder, James Currier, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and one of its backers, Mitch Kapor (of Lotus 1-2-3 fame).
</p>
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:30:44 +0000Vivian Distler2557 at http://member.iftf.orgLet's conference!http://member.iftf.org/node/2354
http://member.iftf.org/node/2354#commentsclay shirkyhealth 2.0social mediaHealth Horizons<p>
I haven't even finished blogging about our own health conference last week, and already I am deeply immersed in the Health 2.0 conference.
</p>
<p>
This morning, Clay Shirky gave the opening keynote. He is a great speaker (you can click <a href="/node/1783">here</a> to watch the video of Clay discussing his book, <i>Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations</i>, at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School). He addressed physicist PW Anderson's idea that &quot;more is different,&quot; that a mass of things behave differently together than they do individually. Clay hit in on three key areas of change: information, coordination, and collaboration. My biggest take-away fell under his discussion of information. Noting that people are the most valuable part of the Internet, Clay observed that information flows to where people trust each other. &quot;Trust is in the eye of the beholder,&quot; and it is not about technology.
</p><!--break-->
<p>
For me, this last point has been one of the shortcomings of this conference. It has offered several &quot;show &amp; tell&quot; opportunities, and I have learned about a lot of interesting techology companies. But I have heard very little about the consumer experience, about the people who actually might use these platforms or devices. It seems to me that you can develop really cool technology, but if nobody uses it, what's the point? That connection seems to be missing here.
</p>
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000Vivian Distler2354 at http://member.iftf.orgRevolution Health is evolving to compete with WebMDhttp://member.iftf.org/node/2335
http://member.iftf.org/node/2335#commentsnew business modelsRevolution Healthsocial mediasocial networksWebMDHealth Horizons<p>
Several months ago, rumors began to swirl around the fate of Revolution Health, Steve Case's foray into the world of online health. You can read about those early reports <a href="/node/2063">here</a>. Within the last few weeks, new stories began to circulate that the company was looking to sell itself. E-Patients.net <a href="http://www.e-patients.net/archives/2008/09/for_sale_revolu.html" target="_blank">suggested</a> that the fate of Revolution--a hot social networking site when launched in 2007--was &quot;another tale of hubris in the e-health sector,&quot; quoting a pre-launch blog post from Case himself:
</p>
<blockquote>
We aim to build RevolutionHealth.com into the world'<span class="entity"></span>s leading health site - and we hope that our focus on an engaging design, high levels of personalization, and an unparalleled sense of community will enable us to achieve that goal. But we'<span class="entity"></span>re far more than a web site. We'<span class="entity"></span>re a company that'<span class="entity"></span>s trying to fundamentally change the health care system. Revolution Health is about making sense of the complicated world of health care. And it'<span class="entity"></span>s about putting you-the patient-at the center of that world.
</blockquote><!--break-->
<blockquote>
We know health care is complex, and striving to revolutionize the health care system is full of risks. But the team at Revolution Health is up for the challenge. We aren't expecting overnight success, and we know this will be a hard slog. But we are committed to seeing this through. <br />
</blockquote>
<p>
I guess Case's noble ambition could not keep up the economic realities of advertiser-supported social networking sites. So Revolution Health merged last week with <a href="http://www.waterfrontmedia.com" target="_blank">Waterfront Media</a>, which owns several health-related websites--from the South Beach Diet to Drugs.com to <a href="http://www.everydayhealth.com/" target="_blank">Everyday Health</a>. The <i>New York Time</i>s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03deal.html?_r=1&amp;ei=5070&amp;emc=eta1&amp;oref=slogin" target="_blank">reported</a> that the deal was valued at $300 million, and &quot;would give the combined companies enough traffic in the United States to compete with WebMD, now the market leader in the online health category.&quot;
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.webmd.com" target="_blank">WebMD</a>, when it launched in 1999, also billed itself as the future of health care. Check out the tag line on this screen shot:
</p>
<p align="center">
<span class="inline inline-left"><img src="/files/images/computers_f1.jpg" class="image image-_original" height="378" width="408" /></span>
</p>
<p>
WebMD has survived over the long haul, morphing along the way. I found the above screen shot in a <a href="http://www.aafp.org/fpm/990700fm/computers.html" target="_blank">review</a> written by David Kibbe in 1999 entitled, &quot;WebMD: The Online Future for Physicians.&quot; I find a certain irony to that title. At the time, Kibbe was focused on Internet-based products and services that the site had to offer <i>physicians</i>. But today, the online future of physicians is largely about patient-centered websites, which WebMD has become.
</p>
<p>
According to the <i>Times</i> article, Waterfront Media's Everyday Health was the second-most popular health-related website in July 2008 (with 14.7 million unique visitors), and Revolution Health was third (11.3 million visitors). &quot;Though traffic varies month to month, the July figures would put the combined companies ahead of WebMD, which had 17.3 million visitors that month.&quot; (On its home page, Waterfront reports similar numbers for August 2008.)
</p>
<p>
So maybe Steve Case, who will remain involved with Revolution Health and take a seat on the Waterfront board, knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to sell (out?) his company and his lofty hopes for it.
</p>
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:07:05 +0000Vivian Distler2335 at http://member.iftf.orgA conference about Web 2.0 as it relates to medicine and healthhttp://member.iftf.org/node/2253
http://member.iftf.org/node/2253#commentssocial mediasocial networkingweb 2.0Health HorizonsThe American Heart Association Social Media Project<p>
<a href="http://www.medicine20congress.com/index.php" target="_blank">Medicine 2.0™</a> is an international conference on Web 2.0 applications in health and medicine, organized and co-sponsored by the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the International Medical Informatics Association, the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, CHIRAD, and others. (When I first saw the announcement, I squirmed a bit at the &quot;2.0&quot; modifier and its trademark notice--doesn't 2.0 seem to be overused these days?) Anyhow, here's how the conference organizers define Medicine 2.0:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<span>Medicine 2.0 applications, services and tools are Web-based services for health care consumers, caregivers, patients, health professionals, and biomedical researchers, that use Web 2.0 technologies as well as semantic web and virtual reality tools, to enable and facilitate specifically social networking, participation, apomediation, collaboration, and openness within and between these user groups. </span>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<span>The conference chair, </span>Dr. Gunther Eysenback,<span> offers a detailed explanation of his decision to use the term &quot;Medicine 2.0&quot; <a href="http://gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.com/2008/03/medicine-20-congress-website-launched.html" target="_blank">here</a>. He also provides an illustration that depicts the scope and definition of the term:</span>
</p>
<p align="center">
<span class="inline inline-center"><img src="/files/images/medicine20map.gif" class="image image-_original" height="240" width="320" /></span>
</p>
<p>
The recurring themes, captured at the center of the diagram, are familiar ones--participation,openness, collaboration. But I must confess that I had to look up the word &quot;<a href="http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Apomediation" target="_blank">apomediation</a>,&quot; which seems to have been coined by Dr. Eysenback.
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
In the health context, disintermediation (cutting out the middleman) means a more direct access of consumer to their personal data (e.g. in web accessible EHRs . . .) and general medical information (on the web . . . ) with all its advantages and hazards. The main problem of cutting out the gatekeeper is that the traditional role of the middleman is to guide consumers to relevant and credible information . . . and that by bypassing the middleman consumers/users may “get lost” in the vast amount of information. Apomediation theory conceptualizes that “apomediaries” (which includes Web 2.0 approaches) can partly take over the role of the intermediary and “push” or “guide” users to relevant and accurate information.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Apomediaries, then, are exemplified by Web-based services and tools that &quot;let people collaborate on a massive scale and share information online in new ways, including social networking sites, social bookmarking, blogs, wikis, [etc.].&quot;<br />
</p>
<p>
Back to the conference, which is set to take place in Toronto in September . . . Medicine 2.0 is intended to be a broader, more encompassing experience than Matthew Holt's <a href="http://www.health2con.com/" target="_blank">Health 2.0 event</a>. The conference is expected to attract more of an academic audience than a business one, and will have an international focus. It will go beyond being consumer-facing to &quot; bring together (and foster collaboration between) different stakeholders and user communities.&quot; And it will consider other possible outcomes beyond &quot;health&quot; that may result from the application of Web 2.0 to the art and science of medicine: &quot;cost-savings, improved communication and trust between different stakeholders, improved quality, convenience, user-experience etc.&quot;
</p>
<p>
Sounds interesting, even for non-academic types. See you there?
</p>
Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:23:54 +0000Vivian Distler2253 at http://member.iftf.orgMedical experts wantedhttp://member.iftf.org/node/2183
http://member.iftf.org/node/2183#commentsinformationsocial mediawikisHealth HorizonsThe American Heart Association Social Media Project<p>
By now, I think that it is safe to say that Wikipedia plays a ubiquitous role in the world of online information. This is even true for health information. At our Spring 2007 conference on <a href="/node/809">Biocitizens and New Media Technology</a>, Health Horizons Program Director <a href="/user/44">Rod Falcon</a> noted in his <a href="/node/883">presentation</a> that, &quot;Wikipedia is the most frequently cited source [of user-generated health content] and <i>appears on the first page of 63% of health searches</i>&quot; (emphasis is mine--I marvel at this phenomenon).
</p>
<p>
A new player will soon be entering the field of online medical information: <a href="http://www.medpedia.com/index.php/Main_Page" target="_blank">MedPedia</a>.
</p>
<p>
<span class="inline inline-none">
<div align="center">
<img src="/files/images/22603v1-max-150x150.png" class="image image-_original" height="150" width="141" />
</div>
</span>
</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
While still in development, with an expected launch by the end of 2008, MedPedia will offer an online medical encyclopedia aimed at the general public. But what will set it apart from Wikipedia is that rather than allowing anybody--you, me, or your Aunt Bertha--to edit the content, only MDs and PhDs in the biomedical sciences will be accepted as volunteer editors. However, anyone will be able to make suggestions about content, which the editors will then review for incorporation.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/medpedia-is-wikifying-the-medical-search-space/" target="_blank">TechCrunch</a> observed last week,
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
There is obvious competition with established medical resource sites like <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/www.webmd.com');" href="http://www.webmd.com/">WebMD</a> and <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/www.mayoclinic.com');" href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/">MayoClinic</a>. Those sites have done really well, but there’s always room for disruptive technology like this. Look at what Wikipedia did to Britannica, a 250-year old encyclopedia publisher. The advantage MedPedia has is its large range of medical professionals who create content based on their specialties, rather than having several in-house doctors creating content on a range of topics they aren’t formally familiar with.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Tech Crunch goes on to suggest that, &quot;This system is advantageous both to MedPedia and the medical professionals. MedPedia benefits from their knowledge and experience, and <i>the doctors are able to promote themselves in their specific field of expertise</i>.&quot; (my emphasis added)</p>
<p>
Hmmm. The motive for experts to participate will be the opportunity to self-promote?
</p>
<p>
Okay, I am being cynical, and the language I emphasized is TechCrunch's not MedPedia's. The <a href="http://www.medpedia.com/index.php/Special:Medpedia/Frequently_Asked_Questions#1_65" target="_blank">website</a> offers that,
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Editors get involved for many different reasons including passion for their subject, the drive to contribute to an important resource of knowledge and the ability to increase their reputations in their field of expertise.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
I should note that MedPedia is working with some of this country's finest medical institutions to develop its initial content, including Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School, and other leading global health organizations.
</p>
<p>
MedPedia's <a href="http://www.medpedia.com/index.php/Special:Medpedia/Frequently_Asked_Questions#1_65" target="_blank">FAQ</a> also sheds light on how the website will make money: good old-fashioned advertising, driven by ad networks such as Google’s AdSense or Healthline’s third party ad service.
</p>
<p>
I don't often spend much time reading the comments on other blogs, but I was curious about what kind of response MedPedia was getting. Some excerpts from the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>'s <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/07/25/medical-wikipedia-is-looking-for-a-few-good-doctors/" target="_blank">Health Blog</a>:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
There are WAY too many sources of medical information already. And restricting it to ‘real’ doctors is just one more way to stroke those massive egos.
</p>
<p>
It will be good if a document is being written by research doctors. At least it would provide some credibility in the world of too many people claiming to be expert.
</p>
<p>
This resource already exists. It is called <a href="http://www.wikidoc.org./" rel="nofollow">www.wikidoc.org.</a> Over 70,000 chapters of open source content in medicine with no industry support and no adds [sic].
</p>
<p>
Lots of wiki’s out there - these guys are late to the party, like Cleveland Clinic’s <a href="http://askdrwiki.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Physician_Medical_Wiki" rel="nofollow">AskDrWiki</a> free initiative.
</p>
<p>
. . . I think that it is important to note that medical wikis have been around before medpedia. We started askdrwiki.com over 18 months ago and since have obtained 501c3 status as a non profit company and have been free of advertising. The site was started by physicians and is maintained by physicians, residents, and medical students.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
The first two quotes address the perceived value of information available online from different sources. Is content from anonymous users &quot;better&quot; than information from the established medical community? Obviously, each of us will have our own opinion about who a trusted source for information might be on the Web.
</p>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>
The last three quotes shift focus a bit more to the business case for MedPedia. It is entering a crowded(?) field in which others are already doing what it is proposing to do. eMedicine, WebMD, and askdrwiki, have all been around for a while and are reliable sources for medical information. Do we need another player in this space? Or ask TechCrunch suggested, &quot;There is obvious competition with established medical resource sites. . . . Those sites have done really well, but there’s always room for disruptive technology like this&quot;? Is there not?
</p>
Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:53:35 +0000Vivian Distler2183 at http://member.iftf.orgPutting in context another newly-launched health-related social networking site http://member.iftf.org/node/2162
http://member.iftf.org/node/2162#commentshealthsocial mediasocial networkinguser-generatedHealth HorizonsThe American Heart Association Social Media Project<p>
<a href="http://www.trusera.com/health/" target="_blank">Trusera</a>--a website that allows people to share their real-world health experiences--launched last month. Its tag is &quot;Come experience the Power of Been There.&quot; When I first came across the announcement on the <a href="http://mndoci.com/blog/2008/06/16/your-personal-health-trusera-launches-and-thoughts-on-participatory-medicine/" target="_blank">bbgm blog</a>, I wondered what would set Tujera apart from similar sites, like <a href="http://www.dailystrength.com" target="_blank">Daily Strength</a> or <a href="http://www.imedix.com/" target="_blank">iMedix</a>, which I blogged about <a href="/node/886">here</a>.
</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
Unlike DailyStrength, Trusera is not organized around specific diseases or health issues. It uses a matching tool to help users find each other. Its founder, Keith Schorsch, comes from Amazon.com, and Trusera offers recommendation features similar to Amazon's to rate the health information its users share. iMedix also allows members of its community to rank content, and it provides a search engine that accesses top health information sources on the web. Both Trusera and iMedix seem to place a greater emphasis on practical advice, rather than the emotional support aspect that DailyStrength is known for. (See this <a href="http://altsearchengines.com/2008/06/15/imedix-and-trusera-%E2%80%93-the-psoriasis-test-case/" target="_blank">post</a> for a condition-specific comparison of Trusera and iMedix.)
</p>
<p>
The story of why Keith Schorsch created Trusera is an interesting one. From the website:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<b>The Bite that Led to Trusera
</b>
</p>
<p>
In 2004, . . . Schorsch was diagnosed with Lyme Disease after he was bitten by a tick on the East Coast. After seeing 11 doctors, he had plenty of expert opinions. He found lots of information online. What he didn’t have was honest, credible insight from real people. People who could share their personal stories and offer relevant and useful health information. People who’d been there.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Of course, Trusera is not the only bottom-up instance of a patient starting a popular health-related website. There are several examples in the diabetes world--from <a href="http://www.SugarStats.com" target="_blank">SugarStats.com</a> (which I <a href="/node/2110" target="_blank">blogged</a> about a few days ago) to <a href="http://tudiabetes.com/" target="_blank">TuDiabetes</a>. Another well-regarded grassroots site is <a href="http://www.imtooyoungforthis.org/" target="_blank">I'm Too Young for This</a>, which is targeted at people under 40 with cancer; the site was founded by Matthew Zachary, who was diagnosed with brain cancer at age 21. <a href="http://www.patientslikeme.com/" target="_blank">PatientsLikeMe</a> was started by the brothers of Steven Heywood after he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's diesease.
</p>
<p>
It remains to be seen how successful Trusera will be in what is becoming a bit of a crowded field; health-related social networking sites seem to be proliferating (check out <a href="http://www.wegohealth.com/" target="_blank">WEGOHealth</a>, <a href="http://www.medhelp.org/" target="_blank">MedHelp</a>, <a href="http://www.hopecube.com" target="_blank">HopeCube</a>, <a href="http://communities.healia.com/" target="_blank">Healia</a>, <a href="http://www.taumed.com/" target="_blank">TauMed</a>, <a href="http://www.mdjunction.com/" target="_blank">MDJunction</a>, and <a href="http://www.icyou.com" target="_blank">ICYou</a><a href="http://www.patientslikeme.com/" target="_blank"></a>.) But Schorsch certainly has his supporters. In the past year, he has raised $2mil in angel funding from the likes of the former president of Expedia and executives at Amazon.com and Wahington Mutual.
</p>
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:45:47 +0000Vivian Distler2162 at http://member.iftf.org